


What Leads Me To You

by CheerUpLovely



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Lian Yu, Reconciliation, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-20 07:06:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10657434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheerUpLovely/pseuds/CheerUpLovely
Summary: Anonymous said: Hi!!! I absolately love your fanfic and your writing!! Are prompts open at all?? I have one but it's a bit weird. Oliver and felicity with dig, thea, laurel and lance going back to the island to do some research into the magic ollie encountered there, to try and take down dark. except felicity gets injured and oliver ends up having to carry her EVERYWHERE and look after her because a tropical storm comes in and they can't get off lianyu until its over. Hopefully you'll take it!! thanks xAnonymous said: Hi I love you! and your fics I was hoping you could do something awesome with this line "for the first time I don't regret those years in hell, just because they lead me to you"





	What Leads Me To You

**Author's Note:**

> I've been sat on this one for a while because I didn't realise how much of it had actually been written! So as this was started a while ago, this is set towards the end of season 4. 
> 
> Forgive any typos, this hasn't been beta'd!

“I can see why they call this place purgatory,” Felicity mutters under her breath, tugging the thin blanket around her shoulders a little tighter.

The wind hasn’t quite hit their shelter yet, but the way the trees protest beyond the canvas walls means that it won’t be long. The storm will be bad. If it wasn’t the basic warning signs telling her that, she could feel it in Oliver’s nervous energy. Sometimes she wonders what happened to him during thunderstorms beyond the Gambit sinking, wonders what other wrongs occurred when the sky was navy and torn with anger. Well, not so much anymore, not when she’s been so actively trying not to think about him, but the thoughts are trickling back into her mind right now.

“I didn’t expect us to be here for that long,” he tells her from his spot before her. He doesn’t look at her, and she can tell that he’s grateful for the reason to avoid anyones gaze right now. 

“Well, that’s my fault, I guess,” she mumbles. 

“It’s okay, it was an accident.”

“A painful accident,” she points out.

They should be on their way home by now, but they’re not and that’s her fault. Everyone knows it, but no one wants to say it. They’re too polite for that, and she knows that they’re too protective of her to consider anything else than what’s best for her. She’s the only one without the benefit of combat skills and a greater physical strength that they build with their training, so when it comes to being in an environment like this, she can feel everyone’s eyes on her.

“Felicity, I’d much rather rough it for a night here than make the injury worse by getting back faster,” he reminds her for the fourth time.

“Still…” she mutters, deflated. It’s been a truly exhausting day, and this is the worst possible thing that can have happened.

Finally, Oliver’s eyes raise to hers. He’s still cradling her foot carefully in his hands as he assesses the damage, but now his eyes on hers, and it’s almost criminal how he’s still trying to reassure her when she knows this is the very last place on Earth he wants to be. “Hey, it’s okay.”

She’s about to respond when a spike of pain tears from her ankle up her calf muscle, and she recoils with a cry. “Ah!”

“Sorry,” he winced, carefully placing her thick hiking sock back over her foot and supporting it as best he can. “I think it’s just a sprain, there’s nothing broken. You definitely won’t be able to walk on that.”

She glances at her foot as though it’s a traitor, but really she blames that ridiculous branch that was concealed by the fallen leaves that she wasn’t prepared for. Given all the dangers on this godforsaken island, it’s ridiculous that they’re stranded here because she’s slipped and hurt her ankle. “But how will we get back?”

“You can go on my back, but I won’t risk that in the dark let alone in this weather,” he replies as if the answer is simple. “We’ll have to wait until morning.”

She sighs, glancing helplessly around at the others who are no more enthusiastic than they are. Everyone is worn, longing for the comfort of their own homes - she can see it as much in Thea, who has also spent unwilling time here in the past, as she can in Oliver. This is a place of nightmares. “No one wants to be here, Oliver,” she points out quietly, lowering her voice.

“No, but everyone would rather you be safe,” he reminds her, before he gets to his feet and brushes his hands over his thighs. “I’ll be back.”

“Where are you going?” she asks him.

“Helping Digg with the shelters.”

She glances around as the tarpaulin walls they’ve managed to structure around the hollow plane he onced used for his own shelter, stopping the storm from reaching them inside. “But they’re up already?”

“The weather’s just going to get worse,” he sighs, and he’s lost for a moment in his own mind. As quickly as he drifts away, he snaps back to himself and he places a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll be back soon okay?”

“Be careful,” she murmurs.

\----

They all sleep fitfully, too disturbed by the raging storm outside to get anything close to real rest. She knows that’s not promising for their day ahead of them, but any rest is better than none. Felicity tries to settle on her side where her injured foot isn’t touching the ground, instead still slightly elevated by resting it on the makeshift prop that Oliver set beneath it. 

“Hey, comfortable?”

Oliver’s voice is soft from behind her but she still hears him clearly over the storm. She’s been aware that he’s laid close to her in the darkness, and once the shelters had been set up he immediately joined her where she’d tried to get comfortable and he hasn’t left her side since. She’s not sure where they are at the moment in any idea of a relationship, but she knows that she feels far better with him close to her, and whether they’re together or not she knows he’ll never let anything happen to her.

“As much as I can be,” she mumbles, shifting again with a wince as her hip finds a small stone she hasn’t managed to sweep away.

“Come here,” he murmurs, shifting her back against him. It’s instantly warmer, which she’s grateful for, letting his arms wind around her torso as her hands find his. She can’t help the action, it’s muscle memory now. This is how he held her on the nights she wasn’t sprawled over his chest listening to his heartbeat. “Better?”

“Much better,” she sighs. Silence falls again, and she considers trying to sleep but cannot let go of the thought that nags at her. “Oliver?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay? With the storm?” she asks.

He hesitates before he answers. She feels his face move closer to her hair as if he’s resisting the urge to bury his face in the back of her neck. “I’ve...been better,” he admits. He doesn’t lie to her anymore, even on the smaller things.

“I’m sorry I got us stuck here,” she tells him quietly.

“It’s okay, this is helping.”

“This?” she asks.

“You.”

It still takes her breath away. “Oh.”

“Is...that okay?” he asks.

Swallowing down whatever awkward feelings remain between them, she shifts back against him even more so their bodies are flush, just as they used to be. Her thumb rubs circles against his palm, and she feels his guard lowering ever so slightly as he allows himself the comfort she offers. “As long as it’s working.”

He takes a deep breath, one that sends a shiver down her spine when she feels his exhale against the back of her neck. “Just try and get some sleep, okay?”

“I’m not tired,” she sighed.

“Me either. But you’re going to need your strength for tomorrow.”

“Technically, I won’t,” she points out. “I’m not walking anywhere.”

“True,” he agrees lightly, but she can tell his heart isn’t in it.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” she asks him.

“Someone needs to keep watch.”

She’s glad that Oliver can’t see her frown. “You said we were safe here.”

“We are,” he assures her.

“But…”

“But this island has plenty of surprises,” he recalls.

Again, the knowledge that he’s spend far too many sleepless nights here leaves a sickening feeling in her stomach. She wonders what is worse, lying here awake and frightened, or being so accepting of your fate that you manage to sleep soundly regardless? “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“That you had to survive here for so long.” He was young, he doesn’t deserve any of what he’s had to survive. She’s lost track of how many times that singular thought has clenched at her heart, every time she lingers on his scars, or hears another story that begins with those fateful words ‘on the island…’

“I’m not,” he murmurs, so quietly that she barely hears him over the rush of wind. If she didn’t feel his chest rumble behind her she could have missed it. 

“Oliver…”

“Without this place, I’d never have found my way to you.”

“You don’t know that,” she tells him, because she’s often wondered herself. She’s wondered if he’d have gone to work with his father, if he’d have seen her at the office and given her a smile, or if he’d have never have given her a second glance.

“We both do,” he sighs. 

He’s right, she knows that. They were two separate people then than they were now, because of his crusade - well, she considers it more their crusade now than his. It stopped being his alone when the stopped working from his notebook and started protecting their city. “I still hate to think of you alone out here.”

He’s quiet for a long time after that, and she wonders if that’s the end of their conversation. She somewhat hopes that it is, as she knows how much it takes for him to talk about this place on a usual basis, and she knows that the island itself may not be the best place to drag up these memories.

Nevertheless, when he answers, she feels the warmth of him chasing away the cold that's set in around them. “I won’t lie, it was a horrible place to be. But for the first time in my life I don’t regret all those years on this hell.”

“Because it gave you purpose.” She’s suspected that before, that he’s chosen to put the island behind him as a necessary part of what he considers to be his training for the life he has now.  

“Because it lead me to you,” he corrects her softly.

That isn’t what she’s been expecting. This may be the closest they have been, both physically and emotionally, for sometime, but it doesn’t change the fact that he considers their broken relationship is what he considers his prize for enduring that struggle. 

“Oliver…” she starts.

The firm kiss on her shoulder silences her. “Just try to get some sleep, okay?” he tells her, his voice strained.

“Oliver, you can say it,” she encourages it. Her hand finds his and squeezes as hard as she can with her cold digits. “I know you want to.”

“I love you.” 

He doesn’t even hesitate as the words fall from his lips. He’s never put that fact in the past, that there’s a part of him that exists solely for her. Not even when they’re at the end of the Earth when he’s surrounded by the dangers of his past. He’s looking for something to ground himself with, and she knows that what grounds him better than anything else is her words, and her touch, so she cannot bear to take that from him now. Not here where he needs it most.

“I love you too,” she whispers.

His breath catches in his chest, and his hold on her tightens. “Felicity…”

“We’ll talk when we get home, okay?” she tells him, stopping any doubts that he’s about to bring up, because it isn’t the time. Right now is about grounding. Tomorrow is about getting home. After that, they can revisit anything else. 

She can almost follow his thought process as he realises this, alternating the need to have her closer and the need to let her rest between the subtle clenches of his hands around her. Eventually, he settles with her drawn back against his chest, content with the possible danger beyond their shelter as long as she is here in his arms, as safe as possible away from it. 

“Okay,” he murmurs. 

She’s certain he doesn’t sleep at all that night, even with the schedule watch systems put in place, but she manages a fitful few hours between the outbursts of the storm that startle her awake. Each time, he’s at her side. 

When she takes his hand on their journey home, he doesn’t let go.

It’s a start. 


End file.
